Grandpa

We the zestful, effervescent, unruly creatures,

Exploded into the quietness of our ancestral home,

With our hands on everything we could get onto,

We were not the angels you could dream of,

Maybe you could call us, pixies.

The magic that worked on us,
 Was our grandpa’s wand.

Our guardian angel was a little different though.

His features were all sharp and well defined,

Like the rules that he had set for the house.

His thin shrivelled hands,

Chiselled face, high brows

Oh those cheekbones!!!!

Even his eyes could pierce us through.

God had left no soft corners in his profile,

Yet his smile could melt icebergs,

And burn a sparkle in his eyes,

Lighting the whole world around him.

His diary, his newspaper, his accounts,

Everything had its time and place in his life.

No matter what, everything happened on time,

And in the right way.

But he would let us disappear into the wilderness around,

To wander, to explore, to discover, to learn,

To be on our own.
We would invade the jungles of our imagination,
Run wild, as we tried to conquer the tallest trees,
set out as soldiers on a secret mission,
unraveling mysteries,
fall and stumble upon  unseen corners.
And in our excitement, start to overlook our old man's rules,
assuming us to be a little beyond his reach.

Only to realize that he could maneuver all around the house,

And that slow walker,

Could change his pace any time,

To bring us right back into his line of discipline.

His care was strange, expressed in his firm rules,
  stranger, his love,
 oscillating between his retributions,
and  his endearing kisses  breathed on our foreheads.